


Trials of a Ticking Heart

by cleromancy



Series: Weathering a Stormy Mind [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Infidelity, M/M, POV Second Person, Pining, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleromancy/pseuds/cleromancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't kiss your best friend the night before he marries someone else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trials of a Ticking Heart

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: alcohol abuse (binge drinking & emotional drinking), vomiting, marijuana use, infidelity, mentions of child abuse and victim-blaming; self-loathing, self-destructiveness. 
> 
> Thanks to Ezra and Kimberlee for reading this over and cheerleading, and Ash for whipping it into shape for me. 
> 
> Feedback appreciated.

*

When you were ten years old, Robb told you he thought of you as a brother. You stared at him for a long moment with your heart in your throat, and then you asked him, voice shaking, if he wanted to make it real. 

For Robb, saying it out loud was enough: he didn’t understand why you wanted something tangible, something to prove it happened. But he agreed, so you took out your pocketknife and dragged the blade against the heel of your palm, drawing blood as easily as breathing. 

It took Robb two tries to break the skin, and another to make the cut deep enough to drip. And then, his face alight with triumph, he held his hand out to you. You grinned back so hard your face hurt, and grasped his bloody hand tightly with your own.

At ten, it seemed like a binding contract, like nothing was stronger than a few drops of blood. You had proof of it on the palm of your hand, and you peeled the scabbing off whenever it started healing over. It was so important to make sure it scarred. If the proof of the promise was right there on your skin, you thought, it couldn't be taken back. 

It's hard to believe now that you were ever so foolish. Promises can be broken as easily as flesh, and it was never _Robb_ you had to worry about.

*

Over the years, you’ve dragged Robb along into doing all sorts of irresponsible shit. Sometimes you think he could probably have skated through his entire childhood without ever pissing off his parents if it wasn’t for you. As near as you can figure, he needed you around as a bad influence so he could get his fill of teen rebellion. Still, getting drunk in the abandoned Dixie cup factory was a thousand times more fun with him there, so you tried not to question it. 

Whatever reason he has for putting up with you, you're glad of it, because it means he'll come smoke up with you in the nine-acre field, means he’ll open his window at one in the morning for you to crawl through with a bottle of vodka. It means you get to see him stoned and giggly and insistent about how majestic his dog is, get to watch him laugh as the two of you toss empty beer bottles at a crumbling brick wall, get to pretend not to like it when he slumps against you, drunkenly touchy-feely, and rests his head on your shoulder. 

You were fourteen when you realized you want him. It hit you hard; you couldn’t stop thinking about him, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even look at him for too long or it hurt to breathe. It hasn't stopped, no matter how much you tried to pretend and hope and pray it away. _Hard enough being queer,_ you thought, _but did it have to be Robb? Anyone but Robb._

It’s just that Robb is perfect. He's brave, he’s noble, he’s warm, he’s clever, he’s kind, he’s beautiful. Everyone who meets him falls a little in love with him. You just fell a little harder than everyone else. 

But he doesn't want you back, so for once in your life you keep your big mouth shut. You keep smiling, because having him as your brother is better than not having him at all, no matter how much you don’t deserve him.

*

It’s years later when, at the dinner at Sansa's wedding reception, Mrs. Stark looks to her other children and says, only half joking, "So when are the rest of you getting married, then?" 

Immediately, Rickon, Bran, and Arya all say, vehemently, " _No,_ " but Robb looks at Jeyne next to him, who looks back, matching soft smiles on their faces, and you feel sick to your stomach. 

Two weeks later, he asks you to help him pick out a ring. 

*

They plan for a spring wedding. The closer it gets, the tighter your skin feels; the more certain you are every time you smile that your face will crack in half. 

And because Robb wouldn't be Robb if he weren't totally oblivious, he asks you to be best man. You’d raised an eyebrow and said, "Snow didn't want the job?" And Robb looked at you, hurt, and told you that you were his first choice, and you felt like absolute scum. So you wound up saying yes, getting yourself a first-class ticket to see the man you're in love with get married to someone else. 

It's harder because you couldn't hate Jeyne if you tried. Robb has shitty taste in women, mostly, but Jeyne? Jeyne's wonderful. She adores Robb and she's goodto him; she makes him laugh, and she’s patient with him when he gets stubborn, calms him down when his temper gets the better of him. She seems to like you, too, for some reason you can't fathom. As far as you’re aware, the only other people who like you are Robb and your sister, although that last one’s sort of negligible. Definitely none of Robb’s other girlfriends liked you. 

You try to be happy for Robb, and for Jeyne, too, but you’re not. Robb would have been happy for _you,_ but you're not Robb, you'll never be Robb, and you'll never have him, either. 

Sometimes when you watch Robb and Jeyne together, an ugly part of you wishes they were as miserable as you are. You push past it ruthlessly, compensating with brighter smiles, louder laughter. You're trying too hard and you know it, but you don't see what else you could do. You keep hoping that if you fake it enough, it'll start being real.

You’re focused so intently on pretending that time sneaks up on you until there’s only a week remaining before the wedding. It had seemed abstract until now, and you wouldn’t have thought you could get any more on edge, but somehow you do. You smoke a lot of cigarettes and drink a lot of coffee and don’t manage to eat much of anything. Sansa and her wife have been shooting you half-concerned, half-pitying looks, and once Mrs. Stark took you aside and asked you seriously if you were alright. Even _Jon_ 's been making an effort to be nice to you, which you repay by telling everyone who'll listen about how his ex-girlfriend once let it slip that he cries during sex. 

Robb doesn't seem to notice at all. You're not sure whether to be glad you fooled him, or to take it as proof that you were never as important to him as he is to you.

There's a lot of shit to get done, rehearsals and outfits and last-minute errands, and that's kind of helpful because at least you don't have so much time to think. Although you could live without Robb calling you at six in the morning, frantic about forgetting to order the fucking floral centerpieces for the reception.

You're supposed to organize a bachelor party, and while it'd be hilarious to see Robb's face if you bought him a lap dance, Robb doesn't actually have all that many friends. He mostly hangs out with you, his fiancée, his family, and his dog, because he's secretly a gigantic loser. You're kind of at a loss, because it's not like you can invite Mrs. Stark and Grey Wind to a strip club. 

So you suggest to Robb that the two of you tell everyone that you threw a massive party where you embarrass Robb a thousand times over, but really just get high and go bowling. Robb's face lights up. It makes your stomach twist in that old, familiar way, but you’re used to it; you push the feeling down and smile back.

Then you take him to your and Asha's apartment, where you share a joint. Robb has no tolerance for weed, gets pink and giggly after just a few hits, which you like seeing maybe a little too much. Then you take the bus to the bowling alley.

You buy him beer—it’s his bachelor party, even if it is a shitty one, you can’t let him buy his own booze—but you _don’t_ let him win at bowling. Robb gets pouty when he loses, moreso with the beer and the weed, and he becomes more of a sore loser as the night goes on. It’s funny as hell, and you don’t bother to hold back your laughter at his expense. Especially when he gets a gutterball and shouts, “Goddammit!” and then whips around guiltily, as if Mrs. Stark would materialize out of nowhere to wash his mouth out with soap. 

There are long interludes between games where you slump together in the booth, laughing and drinking and talking. You’re noisy enough to get looks from the people in neighboring aisles, but it’s hard to care. It’s got to be obvious how much you’re staring at him, but that’s nothing new; if he hasn’t noticed by now, he never will (married, married, he’s getting _married_ ). You just need to remember the way he looks right now, forever. The memories from tonight are something you can have, and you cling to them greedily: the way you touch, easy as breathing, the way he collapses against you in laughter, the way he smiles at you... 

Around eleven, you decide it’s time for the second joint, which you’d brought tucked into the inside of your denim vest. You catch Robb’s eye, tilt your head towards the door, and he gets the hint and follows you out when you duck outside to the parking lot behind the building. It’s still cold as hell, for all that it’s spring, and leather doesn’t actually make for especially warm jackets, so you stand closer to Robb than you maybe would otherwise. The wind is making his hair misbehave, whipping around in the air, and your fingers keep brushing his when you passing the joint back and forth. He looks good when he smokes—eyes slipping shut so his lashes brush his cheek, cheeks hollowing with the inhale, the redness in his cheeks after each pull. 

The joint goes quick. Afterwards you head back inside, and Robb decides it’s time for karaoke. He futilely tries to get you in on it, pulls the it’s-my-bachelor-party card, but he should really know by now that there’s no way in hell you’d get up on that stage. “You can go make a fool of yourself, though,” you tell him, smirking. “Go on. Be my guest.” So he does, goes up on stage and sings and shakes his ass to goddamn Journey, and you lean back in the booth in your corner and shake your head, grinning to yourself. 

People had been steadily filtering out for some time when you finally get a cab back to your place. In the back you and he share space, arms pressed together from the shoulders down; the closeness makes cold sparks burst in your chest, but you're warm everywhere you're touching him.

The two of you stumble into the apartment, his arm around your shoulders; getting inside is a sort of slapstick failure, fumbling with keys and coats and doors, banging limbs and stubbing toes and laughing the whole time. 

There's a stash of booze on top of the refrigerator, one that you and Asha both keep stocked, a mutual agreement that whoever drinks it replaces it, so it's actually there when you want it. You make a beeline for it, rattling off drinks you could mix, and Robb stands behind you, putting his chin on your shoulder—he gets so handsy when he's high, and you feel too warm and languid to freeze up or shift away like you should—and he says, "Make me margaritas," and laughs into your ear when you give him shit about his girly drinks.

"Margaritas," he insists, so you make the damn margaritas, but you still call him _princess_ when he complains about not having tiny umbrellas. 

You bring the drinks, and, after a moment's thought, the rest of the tequila, back to your room. Asha's room is right next to the living room, and this late, if she's not out, she's asleep. She's a heavy sleeper, but it's better not to take the chance of waking her up being drunk and noisy. 

"What a nice party," Robb says contentedly, sliding down onto the floor next to you, careful not to spill his drink.

You take a sip from yours, and salt from the glass's rim sticks to your mouth. You suck it between your teeth, lick it away. "Not really much of a party." 

"No, I mean it," says Robb. "Those parties that are all filled up with people, and everyone's talking to you at once—I'd really rather just screw around with you. No contest." 

"That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me, Stark." 

“I mean it,” Robb says, heartbreakingly earnest, as if you’re doubting his sincerity. As if you ever could. 

“That’s because you’re a sap,” you tell him. 

Robb laughs, bumps your shoulder with his. He doesn’t pull away, after, leaving his shoulder pressed to yours. 

When you glance over, he smiles at you, just for you—one of his long, slow-curling smiles that shows the glint of his straight, white teeth. His smiles fuck you up; they always have. Any time he looks at you with those bright blue eyes all crinkled up around the edges like cellophane, your insides collapse into sodden mush. 

“I’ve missed you,” he says. “There’s been so much going on that I haven’t seen you much. It’ll be a relief when it’s finally over.”

“Likewise,” you manage, and turn away to choke down the rest of your margarita. 

Robb, having finished his drink some time ago, drinks directly from the bottle. 

He passes it your way when you hold out a hand for it, and from there you fall into a back-and-forth, drinking directly from the bottle, glasses discarded and forgotten on your floor. You jokingly suggest you play _never-have-I-ever,_ but Robb goes for it, because he loves that sleepover shit. Before too long the game turns into genuine reminiscing, old half-forgotten memories between him and you, brought back to life.

At some point you move to the bed, the both of you, because being on the floor for too long makes your ass go numb, and you’re too drunk to give a shit about potentially spilling tequila on your blankets. Plus Robb’s going to wind up sleeping there anyway—you’ve slept head-to-tail with him on a thousand different occasions, and the right way around only slightly less often. You don’t even bother offering the couch or the floor anymore. 

He’s drunk enough that he laughs at everything you say, head thrown back and shoulders shaking; he looks incredible, flushed with the booze and the levity, curls gleaming russet in the dim light, eyes so blue it breaks your heart. You can’t seem to take your eyes off him, relentlessly tracing the sharp line of his jaw with your gaze, fingers twitching with the urge to touch. 

You’re so captivated by his face that you don’t realize right away that he’s stopped laughing. He’s gone still, watching you with a muted kind of curiosity, the smallest remnant of a smile left tucked in at the corners of his mouth. 

A heavy kind of quiet fades in. Distantly, you notice how very little space is between your bodies; you must have swayed closer while you were staring. He hasn’t shifted away, though, staying motionless, watching you watch him. His face is warm and open, but there’s something else there, something magnetic and compelling in the way his eyes have gone heavy-lidded, the way his lips have parted the slightest bit. When his eyes flicker down to your mouth, little jolts of warmth flood through your veins. 

It’s only when it’s too late to stop that you realize you’re leaning in to kiss him.

The first thing that registers is the soft warmth of his lips, and then the sticky hints of salt and lime. You reach out, steadying yourself with a hand on his jaw, let lips part to slide along his more fully. It’s dizzying, heady, thrills rushing hot and tingly down your spine. His new growth of stubble rasps against your chin, prickles your lower lip. When you sigh into his mouth, he shudders with his whole body, and then his hands are in your hair, winding tight, and he crushes you against him.

He drags you in so close that there’s no space between you, kissing you hard enough to bruise. You cling to him with all your strength, barely even managing gasped breaths in your fervor to kiss back. 

Kissing him makes you want more, want everything, want dangerous and impossible things. You want to kiss him forever, to crawl inside him until your bodies are irreversibly intertwined. You want there to be no part of him you haven’t touched, no piece of him to find that isn’t a piece of you, too. You want your fingerprints burned on his ribcage the way your blood’s all mixed in with his. You want a thousand things, all of them from him, and the ferocity of your longing makes your clutching hands clumsier, and you pull too hard at his button-down and a seam rips. 

Robb wrenches away, hard. Caught off balance, you fall back on the bed. Everywhere Robb had been pressed against you is awash with sobering cold, every new inch between you filled with a sudden, devastating sense of loss. Horror spreads choking roots throughout your chest. You push yourself up, realizing the enormity of what you’ve just done.

He’s scrubbing his hands over his face. His hair is tangled where your hands had grasped it, his lips swollen and red from your kiss. 

“Robb,” you say helplessly. 

Robb stiffens. He doesn’t look at you. There’s a clawing need inside you to speak, to find some way to laugh this off. You cast around desperately for something to say. Something that could fix this disaster. But there’s nothing, just a hollow ache in your chest from the vast space between you. 

“I,” Robb says, unsteadily. “I think I should get some sleep.” 

He gets up, then, leaves the room, leaving you colder than you’ve been since he first came into your life. 

*

When you wake up, your limited brain function is fully occupied by the brass band blaring in your head and the nest of vipers writhing in your gut, and, most pressingly, how badly you have to piss. It’s not until you’ve stumbled to the bathroom that the events of last night hit you, the look on his face searing itself into your mind’s eye like a brand. You jerk so hard with the force of the memory that you nearly faceplant into the toilet. 

Catching yourself, barely, you use the wall for support as panic threatens to overtake you. You make yourself to breathe, burying the wave of thoughts like _how could I have been so fucking careless_ and _he’s getting married_ and _how can I face him at his fucking wedding_. It takes a few minutes of curling up on the floor, cursing and clawing at your skin, but you get yourself back under control. 

You drag your sorry half-dressed ass out to the kitchen. Robb’s long gone, the only evidence of his presence the blanket still draped over the couch. Asha's at the table, though, one hand wrapped around a massive mug of coffee and the other rooting through a box of Lucky Charms. She glances up when she hears you come in, gives you a sharp look, then her eyes widen with sudden understanding. 

"Jesus Christ, little brother," she groans, and shoves her coffee at you before grabbing a bottle of Jack from on top of the fridge. 

If the impromptu Irish coffee she makes is actually more whiskey than coffee, you can't find it in yourself to complain. 

*

Thanks to Asha's special brand of comfort, you're well on your way to drunk before you even get to the wedding. When you arrive, Sansa grabs your arm hard enough to hurt. She hisses, "Where have you _been_?" before unceremoniously shoving you towards the room where Robb's preparing. 

Robb and Jon both look up when you stagger in—Jon's helping Robb with his cufflinks. Robb meets your eyes for a split second, and then his eyes jerk back down to his wrists. You halt in the doorway, guilt squirming in your stomach with the alcohol. 

Jon rolls his eyes. "Get over here, Greyjoy. You remembered the rings, right?" 

"Of course I remembered the fucking rings," you snap. 

You fish them out of your pocket and put them over on the table. You have to lean past Jon to do it, and you realize your mistake when you hear his sharp intake of breath. He must smell the whiskey, you realize, and you glance over warily to find him staring at you in mingled disbelief and disgust.

It seems like he’s about to call you on it, and your shoulders hunch up protectively in anticipation, but then Robb speaks up, terrified about some trivial wedding detail. So instead of yelling at you, Jon has to reassure Robb, and you get the chance to slink back out of the room. 

*

During the ceremony, all you have to really do is stay upright. Right behind Robb. Stay upright, and don’t laugh at the priest’s speech. Bite your tongue when he asks about objections. Try not to hurt too much when Robb kisses his wife like she’s the only person in the whole world. Try not to remember how it felt when he kissed you back.

As soon as it’s over, you head straight to the open bar. 

The bartender’s cute, and you’d quite like to fuck her in the bathroom, but she’s the gatekeeper for booze and if you piss her off, your access will be limited, so instead of risking it you just smile and ask for two whiskey sours, one for you and one for a friend. You down them both once you’re out of her sight, and then trade those glasses for a full champagne flute on one of the banquet tables. 

The reception gets steadily fuzzier from there. 

*

You while the time away by drinking everything you get your hands on and indiscriminately hitting on the women you don’t recognize. It’s easy to avoid the newlyweds, since Robb’s surrounded by a cloud of well-wishers at all times, and Jeyne, she’s—well, she’s on Robb’s arm. Permanently. Because she’s Mrs. Robb Stark. 

It’s not so bad, you tell yourself, every time you catch a glimpse of them, every time you avoid someone’s pitying eyes. It’s not so bad. It could be worse. It could always be worse. You’ll get through it. You’ll drink too much and make an ass of yourself, but it’ll be over eventually. All you have to do is survive it. 

Except, as best man, you have to give a speech. 

You’d had one prepared. It wasn’t a great speech, but you’d written it, practiced until it didn't make you feel like puking, and memorized most of it so you barely needed your cue cards. It was about Robb meeting Jeyne in high school, about how in love they'd always been, how happy they'll be together. Now that you're up at the mic, you can't remember any of it, and the words on the cards swim before your eyes.

So you wing it. 

"So Robb's... Robb thought it'd be a, a really good idea to marry his high school sweetheart," you say, sloshily, holding onto the microphone stand for support. 

There's some uncertain tittering from the audience, and you nod agreeably. 

"Yeah, I mean, of course he did. Does. Went and did it. Nice job, Robb. You see what you want and you just, you go for it. And Jeyne said yes! 'Course she did. Great girl, Jeyne. She said yes, 'cause she loves Robb. But who doesn't, hey?" 

You're clutching at the mic, ignoring the murmuring in the audience, ignoring Jeyne draining her champagne flute. "Everybody loves Robb. You're all here 'cause you love Robb.”

You exhale loudly into the microphone, broadcasting your drunken exhaustion through the speakers. 

"'S good that people love Robb. Robb's good. I love that man. Love him," you say forcefully, enunciating as clearly as you can. It’s true. Robb’s good. You love him. You can say that if you want. It might even have been in your original speech. 

"And now he's married,” you say. “That's good. For him. Not so good for me." 

You really didn’t mean to say that. Through the drunken haze, you can hear that the audience’s disquiet is louder now. And back in the seat of honor, Jeyne’s killing another glass of champagne, and then there’s Robb, white-faced, staring down at the table. It hurts to look at him, so you look at your hands, clinging to the mic, and before you realize it more things you didn’t mean to say are tumbling out of your mouth.

"It’s better this way. I'd be crap for him. Jeyne's not,” you say. You’re mostly talking to yourself at this point, but as it happens, there’s a microphone in your face broadcasting every word to a room full of people. “Great girl. She's great. You'll be so happy." 

Balance is getting harder with the room spinning like this, so you lean more heavily on the mic stand. The room fills with audio feedback and people in the audience flinch.

"Sorry," you say, and you start laughing. "Sorry, sorry." 

You're still laughing and saying _sorry_ when a strong arm wraps itself around your waist. "Speech over," a voice says in your ear. You realize belatedly it's Jon’s arm, Jon’s voice; when you recognize it, you try and push him off, but he's not letting go and you're so hammered you're barely able to stay upright, so it seems like less work to just let him drag you off the stage. 

He’s herding you down the steps, past the long tables, when you hear Arya saying, loud even over the discontent of the entire hall, “Is anybody really surprised, though?” and then there’s Sansa, quieter, saying, “Shut up, Arya.” 

Jon takes you past the crowd and out through a side door. There’s a wooden bench against the wall. Jon pushes you down onto it.

"Stay there," Jon says. "Try not to fall over." 

It's a challenge to take his advice. The bench feels like it’s made of Jell-O. Your entire field of vision is swirling together in a nauseating blur. You carefully tilt your head back against the wall, closing your eyes to try and ward off the dizziness. 

You’ve never liked Jon. When Robb asked you why, you said it was because he acted like every little misfortune was the end of the world. Robb gave you a reproachful look and told you that Jon was going through a difficult time, that maybe you should cut him some slack. You'd felt guilty, at the time, like you did whenever Robb gave you _that_ look, although you’d never have admitted to it. When you tried being nicer to Jon, for Robb’s sake, you failed spectacularly. Jon was too suspicious to trust your sudden lack of animosity towards him, and took every attempt at an olive branch as a slight on his character. 

Growing up, you assumed that the relative happiness of Stark household was an anomaly. It wasn’t until Asha got her own place and you moved in with her that you figured out that shitty childhoods weren’t the norm. It put some things into perspective. Like it wasn’t that Jon overreacted to his problems so much as that _Jon_ was allowed to mourn the life he should have had. And you, all your life, had to pretend not to care about the shitty hand you were dealt. 

And Robb liked Jon better than you, and that always stung.

The door creaks open again, and you let your head loll in that direction, slitting your eyes open. It’s Jon, back with a bottle of water, which he opens and shoves brusquely in your face. 

"Drink this," he says, and you glare up at him. 

" _Why_ ," you snarl, trying to force your eyes to focus on Jon’s face. 

"You're gonna hate yourself enough tomorrow," Jon says. "Don't make your hangover worse than it has to be." 

“No,” you say impatiently. “Why are you _doing this._ ” 

“Was I supposed to just leave you up there?” Jon says waspishly, as if you wouldn’t have done exactly that, if it had been _you_ in the audience watching _him_ make a fool of himself. 

Jon hasn’t taken the water bottle from under your nose, and glaring up at him seems like too much effort, so you snatch it from his hand. You choke down a few swallows, and Jon stops hovering, instead sitting down next to you on the bench. About halfway through, you have to shove the bottle back to him so you can double over and puke your guts out on the ground. It’s a good thing your hair is short, you think as you retch, or Jon would probably have tried to hold it back for you. 

When you’re done, you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand, before you slowly push yourself back upright. Wordlessly, Jon hands you back the bottle. You rinse your mouth out with the first gulp and spit that out, then chug the rest of the bottle. It goes down easier now that you’ve barfed up the worst of the bingeing. 

“Give me your phone,” Jon says, and, when you stare at him blankly, “your _phone,_ Greyjoy.” 

There’s a part of you that wants to say something cutting, but you’re tired and drunk and sad and at this point, you don’t think you really care enough. Sighing, you grope through the pocket of your suit jacket and hand him the damn phone. 

Jon scrolls through your contacts in silence until he find what he’s looking for and brings the phone up to his ear. 

“This is Jon Snow, uh. Robb Stark’s brother,” he says after a minute. “Your brother’s… can you pick him up? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. But he needs to… not be here.” 

There’s a pause, and then Jon sighs. “Ask him tomorrow,” he says wearily. “But listen, I’ll text you the address. Thanks. Really, thank you.” 

He hangs up and, after a few more moments of fiddling, hands your phone back to you. 

You hold it loosely in your hands and stare down at it like you’ve never seen it before. The plastic casing fits neatly against the raised white line on your palm. You shift your phone out of the way to trace the old scar with your thumb.

“This was,” you start, and then stop, pressing harder on your scar. You swallow. Start again. “This was not one of my better days.” 

“No shit,” Jon mumbles. 

_The bastard makes a joke,_ you think, and you let out a short bark of laughter.

“Yeah, no shit,” you say, agreeably. “You know, I think of all my many, _many_ fuckups… this might actually be the worst.” 

And then you’re laughing again, soundlessly, so overwhelmed with it that your body’s shaking and you fall helplessly back against the brick wall. It’s all so absurd. Everything. This whole day. Your whole life. You wrap your arms around yourself as you shake.

The hysterics subside, with time, trailing off enough that you can get air in your chest again. When you slump back against the wall, your head cracks back hard on the bricks. It’d probably be painful if you weren’t still pretty drunk, but instead you just laugh a little more. 

"You always do that,” Jon says. 

You look at him, scrunching your face up in confusion, and he rolls his eyes and clarifies. 

“The laughing thing,” he says. “When something’s gone all... fucked up. You always do that. Why?” 

Isn’t _that_ a question.

The _laughing thing_ is an old habit. You learned early that when you cried, your dad would get out his belt, so you learned to laugh instead. It feels almost natural now, after years of putting it into practice. At seven, your brothers had gotten rougher than usual, and your arm wound up broken; they ran away like cowards, leaving you alone on the playground, curled around your arm and laughing hysterically. When your mom got sicker and sicker until she couldn't recognize you, you joked that it meant you wouldn't get grounded for cutting class. On the day they took your dad to prison, he told you to your face that you weren't any son of his, and after you got through the whole soul-crushing misery thing, you decided it was funny, cause you'd never really liked any of your father's sons. 

But Robb was there for you through all of that. You couldn't remember how to cry, so Robb cried for you. When you couldn't get angry for your own sake, Robb was furious at whoever'd fucked you over. When you told him that a lot of people had it worse than you, so what right did you have to feel bad, he'd looked at you like you'd just broken his heart. And it helped, knowing someone cared enough to be upset on your behalf. It was a little like Robb was some kind of fucked up version of a seeing eye dog, feeling the things you couldn't let yourself feel. 

If you'd been in love with anybody else, you'd have told Robb about it. And Robb would have said, "You should tell him." He'd have said it with such conviction that you'd do it, even though you knew it would all go to hell. And when it did, Robb would have said, "His loss," would have insulted the guy's taste, would have gotten trashed with you and slurred, with that overearnest sincerity, that there were other fish in the sea. And you wouldn't have believed him, but it would have been okay anyway, because you would’ve still had him. 

Maybe that's why you can't imagine being in love with anybody else. 

Jon, beside you, is still waiting for an answer. You don’t really have one, not one he’ll understand, so instead, you say hoarsely, “Why not?” 

He gives you this look he always gives you, like you’ve managed to disgust him beyond his wildest imagination, and for the first time you’re glad of it. If he’d pitied you, if he’d looked at you with anything other than absolute loathing, you think you’d crumble to pieces. 

After that it’s quiet, since Jon seems to have decided that you’re not worth talking to; that’s fine. It’s not like you want to talk to him, or anyone. You just rest your elbows on your knees and press your knuckles against your eyes, hard enough that the kaleidoscope of colors shoots off behind your eyelids. 

Not much later, Asha rolls up in her pickup truck, parking at the curb. You look up at the sound, staring blankly. There’s a homesickness brewing inside you as thick and gnarled as the nausea, but home for you has never been Asha’s apartment. It’s always been Robb. 

“You gonna be okay?” Jon asks warily, and you look down, swallowing, and pretend not to hear him. Carefully, you push yourself up off the bench. Standing up straight proves to be beyond your capabilities, though, so Jon gets up and puts your arm over his shoulders. Maybe you should protest, but it’s just one more humiliation after a night of humiliations. You must have drunk all your shame away. 

Asha doesn't speak to you on the way home. You suppose there’s not much left _to_ say at this point. Congratulations, little brother, you've fucked it all up again: the only thing you were ever any good at. 

You press your cheek against the cool glass of the window. You've done it this time; you ruined the one thing in your life that made sense. There's no way you can face Robb again. Not after ruining his wedding. Not after humiliating yourself. It just proves that he’s better off without you. You’ve always known he was. You were just too much of a selfish piece of shit to do anything about it. Here’s your chance to give him the clean break he deserves. 

Tomorrow, you’ll ignore his calls. If he comes by the apartment, Asha can tell him you’re not home. You’ll learn what it’s like to live without him. There’ll be some way you can find to fill up the time. If you’re lucky, he’ll give up on you. If he’s lucky, he’ll forget all about you. He never needed you the way you needed him. It’s better this way.

Unbidden, your fist clenches tight. Your fingertips brush the old scar.


End file.
